Erina: Gary Dreyer looked over cubicle at boy, 14, for ‘sexual gratification’
A man who peered over a cubicle to watch a schoolboy urinate was on bail for a similar offence committed while on a suspended sentence for indecent assault of a third teenager, a court has heard.
Central Coast
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A man who was on a suspended sentenced of one year and eight months jail for indecently assaulting a teenager committed two further similar offences including grabbing one boy on the penis and peering at another over the cubicle wall of a toilet at Erina Fair, a court has heard.
Gary John Dreyer, 62, of the Central Coast, faced Gosford Local Court on Monday having pleaded guilty to intentionally looking at someone engaged in a private act and assault with an act of indecency.
The court heard Dreyer was given a suspended sentence of one year and eight months at Parramatta District Court after pleading guilty one count each of remaining in a building with intent to commit an indictable offence and indecently assaulting a young teenager in 2016.
Magistrate Peter Barnett said Dreyer, who ran a catering business, then became friends with a 15-year-old through his work at Woy Woy.
He said Dreyer would text the victim using “sexual overtones” that was “clearly indicative of his desire for a non-platonic relationship” with the boy.
Mr Barnett said he began to kiss the boy on the cheek and then the lips, offering him free food and drink from his business.
He said on one occasion between August and October, 2017, as the victim was going to the fridge for a drink Dreyer said “give me a feel” and reached through the boy’s clothes and grabbed the boy’s penis.
The victim “froze” and Mr Barnett said Dreyer added “that was all right”.
He said Dreyer continued the “ongoing courtship, almost grooming” in January 2018 to ask the boy if he had been watching pornography or masturbating.
Mr Barnett said another person started asking questions about why the boy was getting free food and drink and it was later referred to police.
Dreyer was charged with indecent assault in May 2018
The court heard Dreyer was on bail pending the outcome of that offence when he passed a boy, 14, as he was leaving a public toilet at Erina Fair on the morning of April 2, 2019.
The court heard Dreyer turned around and climbed up on the toilet of the adjoining cubicle to peer over at the boy.
Mr Barnett said the duration was short only because the boy “looked up”.
He said the boy waited until he felt Dreyer had left before going outside where he used his mobile phone to take a photograph of the man.
The boy later told his teachers and police arrested and charged Dreyer with a peep and pry offence.
Dreyer’s solicitor argued that he could not have known the boy was so young until he looked over but the magistrate said he had passed him in the toilet block and would have seen him in his school uniform.
“Was he looking over there expecting to see a bikie? I don’t think so,” Mr Barnett said.
The court heard Dreyer was the full-time carer of his mother, 86, who was in ailing health and would almost certainly have to go into a nursing home if he was jailed.
However Mr Barnett said while he had “no doubt” Dreyer was concerned for his mother, he committed the second offence after getting a suspended jail sentence and the third offence, while on bail.
“Mum came second to his own sexual gratification,” he said.
Dreyer was refused bail after being charged with the assault of the Woy Woy boy and the Erina cubicle incident, with the court hearing he had spent a total of six months and one day in custody.
Mr Barnett sentenced him to time already served and placed him on an intensive corrections order for 12 months, with the added conditions he abstain from alcohol and perform 100 hours of community service.